Informal Poll: Snerker's Only board

I'm looking into getting feedback on whether or not we should have a Snerker's Only board in order to facilitate easier discussion of recently released books. Opinions?

Requiring the spoiler tag on threads works, but a Snerker's Only board might be a better idea. That'd keep it mostly in 1 place

Duckk wrote:I'm looking into getting feedback on whether or not we should have a Snerker's Only board in order to facilitate easier discussion of recently released books. Opinions?

I think a board for eARCs would be worth considering. I tend to think that most people on the board will have the books in the first week of normal shipment so I'd rather not drag those in too.

Donnachaidh wrote:Requiring the spoiler tag on threads works, but a Snerker's Only board might be a better idea. That'd keep it mostly in 1 place

Duckk wrote:I'm looking into getting feedback on whether or not we should have a Snerker's Only board in order to facilitate easier discussion of recently released books. Opinions?

I partly agree and partly disagree with Donnachaidh that a Snerker's Only Board might be a better way to manage these discussions. Keeping the snerks in one place will obviously manage the snerks; however, you will still get some "leakage" of discussions in the regular threads. Also, what happens when the snerk period is past and the discussion can continue in the regular board? How does this disjoint (or does it disjoint) the conversation threads?

Just my thoughts.

Duckk wrote:I'm looking into getting feedback on whether or not we should have a Snerker's Only board in order to facilitate easier discussion of recently released books. Opinions?

I think it would be a good idea, although you should expect to have to move threads from other boards to it, and have complaints about those moves.

Snerkers rule should be its;

NOT a spoiler 1 to 3 months after the hardback is released.

Current board SNERK rule is 1 month. The number of people who are fans and who actually read this board and don't buy the book within a month of when it comes out I don't have any sympathy for. Either you are a fan or you aren't. If you are only at best a casual fan then you won't be reading this forum.

Yes, I buy paperbacks. No, I don't buy Earcs. Hate reading a book on a computer screen. Supposedly things like the Kindle are good. But I don't want another damned device with a battery that goes dead and which dies requiring replacement, or the keys stick and die requiring replacement. I'll stick to killing trees.

As for a Snerker only board? Here I am assuming, due to all of the Earc folks who patrol these boards, you wish to make one or are thinking this way? As far as I am concerned, if someone can't read a title saying "SPOILERS" and avoid it for all of 2 months if that, then that is their problem. If they can't have the patience, then they will read the EARC SNERKERS board as well even if they don't purchase said EARC.

No sense complicating things. Seems like just another forum thread that you the moderator will have to patrol making your life harder as well.

wastedfly wrote:Snerkers rule should be its;

NOT a spoiler 1 to 3 months after the hardback is released.

Current board SNERK rule is 1 month. The number of people who are fans and who actually read this board and don't buy the book within a month of when it comes out I don't have any sympathy for. Either you are a fan or you aren't. If you are only at best a casual fan then you won't be reading this forum.

Yes, I buy paperbacks. No, I don't buy Earcs. Hate reading a book on a computer screen. Supposedly things like the Kindle are good. But I don't want another damned device with a battery that goes dead and which dies requiring replacement, or the keys stick and die requiring replacement. I'll stick to killing trees.

As for a Snerker only board? Here I am assuming, due to all of the Earc folks who patrol these boards, you wish to make one or are thinking this way? As far as I am concerned, if someone can't read a title saying "SPOILERS" and avoid it for all of 2 months if that, then that is their problem. If they can't have the patience, then they will read the EARC SNERKERS board as well even if they don't purchase said EARC.

No sense complicating things. Seems like just another forum thread that you the moderator will have to patrol making your life harder as well.

I think the rule on the Bar is that it is not a snerk only after the paperback is released. Am I wrong, anyone, please.

Generally I like the idea of a snerk Forum (or do you want a snerk Topic in each Forum?), but maybe we should think about just leaving all snerks to the Bar. Although, come to think of it, it'd be a good place for runsforcelery to post his peeks.

There ARE a fair number of people who can't get the hardback the day its released, because of international shipment times. So even of people who aren't deliberately choosing to wait for the paperback, there are still people for whom it's a spoiler even a few weeks after the release.

That said, I'm not a big fan of having a separate section. When you have separate sections, you can be posting in one forum and then post in the other and get which forum you are in mixed up far too easily. I know, I've done it. And the confusion about "when do we move back to the main forum" can be a pain. Plus there will be topics in the snerkers forum that people will want to CONTINUE to discuss AFTER the "segregation" is no longer needed. What do you do then? Move all the threads? I mean, you could, but why create the unnecessary trouble to do this?

Instead, I think we should stay pretty much as we are. Just require that the topic title include a spoiler warning. Then, if the topic title doesn't include the spoiler warning, don't post in it once you have read the book. Or at least use extreme caution. But by limiting things to the topic level, you (usually) won't be swapping back and forth between multiple screens and accidentally post in the wrong one.

Duckk wrote:I'm looking into getting feedback on whether or not we should have a Snerker's Only board in order to facilitate easier discussion of recently released books. Opinions?

I suppose I'm in the "it doesn't matter to me" group, since I've never met a bit of early information that's spoiled the enjoyment of a book. I suppose it could happen, but it hasn't happened yet.

I agree with wastedfly that the people who read this board are pretty hard-core fans, so a relatively short period after the hardcover release seems more appropriate than six months after the paperback (which I think is the Bar's rule.) On the other hand that does lead to the possibility of information leakage. Who is going to police TV Tropes or Wikipedia, for example?

You can throw my vote in for the group that says keep it how it is. Maybe turn the 1 month Hard Back rule into 2 months.

No, I don't buy the EARC, but HB, usually yes except anthologies. For instance I have not read the latest anthology yet. Yes, I did know that there were a couple threads a while back with said topics in them. No, it really did not matter to me that said topics were present.

I figure if we nut jobs put in enough effort to actually read and post at a forum specifically for a FICTIONAL author, then we qualify has pretty hard core fans. In which case its probably well over 95% of folks who read the book the first week it is in the stores. Probably 30% buy the EARC or steal it off of ETorrents.

Personally, if there should be ANY new rule, is that there should be NO discussion with SNERKS until the HB has been published. That would solve the problem as I see it as I don't see the average poster here on the DW.net as waiting for the paperback.

Somehow, said poster on this board will get their hands on the HB even if they have to borrow from a friend or read it in the store or download from Torrents before actually eventually buying the book. In which case a SNERK board won't make any difference to them.